0:00
everybody coming live today with Dan Ralphs um with the simple growth
coaching team myself Mike Callahan our
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other person that usually joins us on these Aaron suttonfield was actually
unable to join us he’s live actually at a lawn care company currently
helping
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them walk through some of the stuff we’re actually talking about here on
this Facebook uh but Dan if people
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haven’t met you um obviously I’ll have you introduce yourself but um when I
met Dan I was
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probably eight or nine years ago and Dan uh and the content he brings to
the simple growth coaching team was
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instrumental in my lawn care business so about 12 months maybe 13 months
ago uh
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we formed the simple growth coaching with our scale plus and masterminds
and the things that I learned that helped me
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really turn some things around the the culture and the six areas of my main
part of my business that really need to
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be dialed in uh Dan was able to come in as an eight-figure business Expert
not just seven figure but eight figure
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um so it really was my kind of purpose now to be able to go out and bring
the knowledge that Dan used in my company to
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everyone else out here in the lawn care and Landscape industry so I just
want to put some some background to this because
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um we’re just not going out and uh doing this we’ve been doing it over 12
to 13 months Dan you’ve been doing it for a
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long time I’ll let you get into that uh but this is something not that
we’re just like selling to try to make money on this is something I
actually used my
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business made a huge impact um and really I just feel like it’s my duty to
actually be able to get this out to all the lawn care companies
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um in the industry US and Canada for sure so Dan without any further delay
uh if you want to give a little background and how you ended up in this
crazy uh
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Lawn Care industry yeah long story I’ll make it really short I love love
love
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not inappropriate way like Mike was trying to get me to be inappropriate
but I love love entrepreneurs I I just love
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the spirit of Entrepreneurship and the spirit of business ownership where
it’s like I’m gonna go Take On The World and
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I’m going to try to win and everyone else be damned right it’s like I’m
gonna go figure it out and I love that energy
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and for the past 10 years I’ve been really lucky to be able to coach
hundreds and hundreds of of small business owners especially those who are
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at a million dollars in revenue and trying to scale up to 10 million and
the truth is that most business owners who
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are at that phase um or have or even before like even if you’re like 250 or
500 000 a year like
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if you’re just getting started on this entrepreneurial Journey like most
people who are in those seats
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aren’t technicians I don’t know if you are like they’re technicians not
business like mbas right and so if you
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haven’t had like business training or you have learned some of this
fundamentals of business like you can be
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really really good at your craft and still struggle to grow and scale up a
business and so I feel a lot of um
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empathy for those guys and gals who are trying to make it and just duct
tape and bailing wire and we’re trying to bring
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really like high level business coaching to that group and we watch just
just
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amazing how businesses Sprout up as a result of that um my number one
favorite metric mic I
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don’t even ask me about this but my number one favorite metric just popped
my head my number one favorite metric is cell phone free vacation days
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because I love businesses that scale to a level and scale in a way that
allows
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the business owner to have the freedom that they started to pursue in the
first place and so our goal is to create
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businesses that have cell phone free vacation days um and that’s like the
ultimate metric
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because it means your business is humming and running in an awesome way and
allows you to one have enough
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Revenue to take a vacation and two have the freedom and team that you need
uh that allows you to go just enjoy the
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freedom that entrepreneurs deserve Dan I’m glad you mentioned that so crazy
thing we haven’t talked about this
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beforehand but literally one of the first things I did after going through
this process is we were in the Dominican
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Republic and you know they got a little safe in the uh in the hotel closet
I actually took my cell phone and it put
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it in there actually had my wife Sarah put the code in there um and said
hey if there’s an emergency
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you know the world’s on fire you could call her cell phone or call the
hotel but I’ll tell you what that cell phone
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never ever left that case um and I never got a phone call and things were
just as good if not probably a little bit better than they were when
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I was there because sometimes as business owners who like to get in there
and micromanage and become that bottleneck um and really what’s been really
fun is
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watching this journey of 60 70 plus companies now in the last 12 to 13
months
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um go through these transitions a lot of them coming in and having that
grind mentality of um you know where Gary Vena
4:33
but a lot of these people are talking about you know grind grind grind
grind grind work 70 80 hours a week and you can just grind through it and
the truth
4:39
is Daniel you probably can grind through it to a certain point but it’s not
sustainable and at some and in some ways
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you kind of have to grind there’s a little period where grind is part of
the game but we don’t want a living right we
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don’t want to stay in granted we don’t want to be there forever because
there is the truth is is that um usually those guys who are grinding
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aren’t the same guys who are building scalable systems and up leveling and
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training people and empowering their people to really grow things and so
like the grind works for a period but there
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comes a moment where you have to abandon the grind mentality only and you
have to blend it with strategy
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and and just smart business sense making sure you’re making good business
decisions and that allows you really to
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scale up yeah could could agree with you more obviously you got to put the
work in but at some point it just is not sustainable
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it’s just not a good look by the way I like I love I love that grind I love
that energy and that Vibe and if you’re
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a grinder like deepest respect and props to you like it is
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if you couldn’t have gotten the business to where it is today without that
grind energy
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um what we what happens though is that when we’re only grinding and just
struggling we end up becoming the
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bottleneck in our business and we end up you letting work be the way we get
out of problems rather than smart just
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business decisions that allow us to get our problems and so when we watch
the
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really that the CEOs I admire most in lock your space are the CEOs who
actually are spending the least amount
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of time grinding who are like I’m spending four or five or six hours a week
in my business and it’s producing
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two million or three million dollars of Revenue a year like it’s like those
are the guys I really admire because they’ve
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learned how to build a scalable business yeah and that kind of walks us
into the first area that we traditionally look at
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when we look at a business um is really the owner’s time we kind of call
that step one
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um and traditionally we look at it Dan and we should say hey you should
have at least four hours set aside a week you
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can actually work on the business not in as Michael Gerber would say so I
don’t know if you want to elaborate kind of yeah time management how that
plays into
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this let me zoom out a little bit because we we went we got really
intentional like it was Mike and I and
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Aaron suttonfield we got together and we said our right if I were if I were
Dave Ramsey trying to describe the baby steps
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to go from I’m I have no time and no money in my business I’m a business
owner and I just feel like I’m drowning
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and if we were to start there we would say all right what are the baby
steps to get out and get to a point where you’re
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at a million or and then eventually to a 10 million dollar lawn care
company like what are the fundamental steps the
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Practical what do I do first what’s step one and step one that we did we
feel
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like is really important is the business owner has to gain that control
over their calendar enough
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to where they have at least four hours a week to work as Michael gerberus
would say on
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their business and not in their business because we know like if you’re if
you’re like so many
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business owners I know like you were I’m shocked you’re listening right now
because you have so much going on that
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you it just it becomes overwhelming and if you can’t break away enough
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to start like if the boat is sinking you have to find at least a little bit
of time to stop bailing and start filling
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holes uh in the boat and so step one is that is we’re going to we’ll find
some
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time we’re going to carve out and block time usually in in at least two
hour blocks one four hour block or two two
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hour blocks and you’re gonna say hey we are going to block this time it’s
going to be
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turn off the cell phone I’m going to like lock myself in a closet and I’m
just going to be working on the business unplugging the holes that are
causing
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this boat to fill sometimes like it’s sinking yeah and there’s a lot of
different taxes that we go in there how to actually manage your calendar
and I know
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as an entrepreneur like even five years of college no one taught me these
simple skill sets it’s not like it’s complete
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rocket science but man when it’s put together in a simple framework um and
it’s easily digested and implemented in Little Steps
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um it really just takes the weight off of business owner’s shoulders at
least it did mine so these are the things we’re diving into and then kind
of back
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into that time frame thing uh we’re talking about Dan um Step number two we
look at finances
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and that is um I think one of the most interesting things when we do setups
on different
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software such as service autopilot or copilot CRM a lot of times business
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owners will get in there and what we find is on the outside it’s a very
successful business
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um financially we think but when we get in there they really the business
owners running in the dark they don’t have an
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understanding of their financial numbers um and they don’t really
understand what Cadence should be happening in
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their bookkeeping how to keep things reconciled so by the 10th of the 15th
of the next month at a bare minimum they
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can actually take a look at those financials that are clean in a setup
chart of accounts and then I guess some of the scary things Dan is
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um you know we had a gentleman running 150 to 160 000 for lack of a better
terms yacht out of his business
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um and he was wondering why his his business profit was so low and I was
like hey you know so and so it actually
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you’re doing pretty good but you got this freaking boat another ten
thousand dollars for this slip tied in your business expenses so
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um you really need in my opinion and Dan I’m sure you’re an elaborate is is
we need to be able to to handle the business and somewhat of the personal
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finances and make sure the personal house is in order too and how they can
co-mingle and work together in parallel
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at the beginning right it’s it’s all sort of one cash flow coming into our
lives and we have to learn how to
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separate those out we have to make sure that we’re not trying to pay an
elaborate
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salary to a CEO to an owner that we can’t yet afford as a business and so it
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is a part of our personal finances make sure our finances are in order um
because there is going to come a day where we’re going to have lots of extra
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for the owners but if we but not if we are just barely getting by as a
business today so we have to figure out our
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personal finances and what we come to find is you know I was chatting with
Aaron the other day he’s our head coach
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and he’s awesome man he is the poster child for what we hope to build and
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Aaron runs a really successful lawn care company but one of the things he
kept um discovering is he goes I feel a little
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bit like I’m a fractional CEO when I’m sitting and chatting sitting across
for people and we’re chatting about the
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business and if you’ve never been a CEO before that’s a new role and just
like Tiger
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Woods has a golf coach sometimes it’s helpful to have someone sitting
across and looking at books and it’s and it’s
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fundamental things that we want to like dive in and make sure you have
straightened out because we’ll go into a
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business we want to do a business the other day and this woman was awesome
super cool hard-working smart her and
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her husband running this lawn care company together but when we opened up
our books we’ve came to find out that she was her actual margin on her her
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profit margin was like one percent and sometimes negative 0.5 percent
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and so there was something wrong with the numbers the model of her business
she was either not charging enough she
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was either spending too much in different areas she was maybe like so there
was something wrong with the
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numbers and so we helped her get that sorted out and when you get that
sorted out all of a sudden now I understand all
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right I need to decrease I need to increase my efficiency a little here and
I need to charge a little bit more over here and she was able to go from a
one
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percent margin to a 15 margin or 20 margin in the business because we don’t
want to scale a business that’s
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making one percent or making negative one percent like we don’t want to
scale maybe one percent so we want to make sure that those numbers are
clean and
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tight and that the business model will bear the weight of a growth and
that’s all about the numbers yeah the bare
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minimum just to roll out with those trucks you got to be doing in my
opinion you should be doing at least double digit uh net margins bottom
line to
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there um and I think one of the things that kind of at least right that she
had made I think I want to say
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she was at a million or near a million and had like made two percent of that
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well that was all her work amounted to two percent of a million now that’s
still a lot of money for for me at least
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when I was a kid but man there’s so much more like two and twenty like she
could 10x and she’s going to 10 extra profits
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just because we sat down together and we got those numbers right and so if
you’re not a numbers person that’s not your
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expertise or even if you’re like I’m pretty sure they’re right it’s good to
have someone a fractional CEO sit across
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from you and kind of give it a look yeah just just a little confidence and
just to make sure everything’s tightened up and if you’ve never looked at
those
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numbers and never been taught uh which in the early days I wasn’t either um
you know we had to go out and get
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that education but it paid big dividends um and I see one of the things
that right now is very popular a lot of
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people starting businesses or even really uh you know 15 20 years in
business now uh they’re going out and
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trying to do everything and be everything and what I mean by that is we see
this a lot of times there’s work and need to need with hundreds of
businesses
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every year um setting up their software their job costing their automations
their fighting you know million dollar million and a
13:46
half dollar business they’re providing 20 or 30 different types of services
um and it’s it’s it’s the chaos of a
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non-simple business so as we’re growing the scale a business we want to go
up with one or two maybe three core
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services that are scalable um and then eventually we can spread out amongst
that once we get a little bit
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bigger and cross-sell into that database but uh one of the things we look
at Dennis is how do we create a simple
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business and simple service offering yeah so Step One is time step two is
14:15
finances and step three is making sure that the model itself is really
simple uh it’s hard to grow business no matter
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what it’s really hard to grow a complex or convoluted uh business and what I
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mean by complex probability is simply this that we have multiple products
streams
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selling into multiple markets I mean different types of people are buying
our products I’m doing commercial I’m doing
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residential I’m doing uh government I mean yeah it’s government I’m doing
and then I’m not only am I doing all that
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which is complex on its own but I’m also trying to do different services
with them I’m doing 24 I’m doing design build
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I’m doing uh cleanups like I’m doing all of this stuff and as a result of
that I
14:59
feel spread really thin and the truth is you are because it’s really wide
and we can’t go very deep and the systems get
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really complex and convoluted and so one one of the processes we want to
take you through is making sure that we’re
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spending time in the most profitable things that take the least amount of
time and that we are going deep in those
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areas so that we’re seeing really great results from those areas because
you know like if you’re listening and you’re
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like you’re serious you know there are some parts of your business that you
go yeah I know we’re kind of like just
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breaking even on that stuff you know that you might absolutely just hate it
so a good example now that
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there’s great money to be made in design build but traditionally most
businesses with design build a good portion of
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design build requires the business owner to be in it in a very integral
piece of
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it almost babysitting it or they haven’t been able to delegate a lot of
that because it’s so complex and that’s where
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those non-self-free vacation cell phone free vacations actually happen
because you get calls on stuff that technically
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you’ve created such a complex service that you have to be there for it to
succeed and that’s that’s the scary thing and don’t get me wrong you could
16:07
have a simple design build business yep but and and you may even see some
bigger
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companies that have like a lot of different services and that works because
they have really high paid managers high paid leaders that are
16:20
running divisions of a company but when you’re little you only get one
division you don’t get 12 divisions unless you
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can somehow afford 12 awesome maybe you have like 11 brothers and all the
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brothers are awesome and they’re all going to run their own division all
right I could buy it but it’s really hard to do if it’s just one guy or just
16:37
one one couple that is trying to run uh run a business and so um so step
three we’re just going to try
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to help you simplify the business make sure we’re really focused on keying
on uh the simplest way to get things done
16:48
the simplest way to sell things the simplest way we’re just trying to make
it super easy and get to the cash as
16:53
quick as we can let’s just say step four Dan now that we’ve got this simple
business in place
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we got some cash flow we got some time uh biggest issue right now in any
service business especially lawn care
17:04
and Landscape is hiring the key people like how do we go out and figure
that out and that’s something and that that
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you’ve really helped master master master master and actually rinse and
repeat systems uh for really key key
17:18
higher acquisition yeah it’s interesting I go across the country this is a
major complaint
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um from lawn care companies across the board that I’ve talked to um but not
all of the lung cares I’ve
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talked companies I’ve talked to meaning it’s not a universal problem uh
because there is a way of doing it
17:36
that works and is predictable and the next thing you know you have a flow of
17:41
people working coming in and you’re retaining them and onboarding them well
and so I could like honestly my I I know
17:48
we don’t have enough time for all this but I have like I could talk for two
hours on how to build a killer
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onboarding and hiring process that allows you to feel uh like you’re you’re
18:00
picking that you’re Harvard and not the Community College you know what I
mean so you’re the one who’s getting all these people coming to you and
you’re
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going oh out of all of these people I’m going to choose you rather than the
other way around where it feels like well I have to just accept everyone if
18:12
I’m going to fill the seats and you’re you’re kind of in the two feet in a
heartbeat style of hiring where it’s
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like hey if you will like to go out and hold this machine and do the work
I’m hiring you and as you know that employee
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turnover especially early on as a business owner is extremely painful and
extremely costly
18:29
um they’ve said and I don’t know I’ve heard various numbers but something
to the tune of each time you lose an
18:35
employee and have to replace that employee the cost is something like was
it one times their salary like their
18:42
annual salary I’ve seen it probably in my business almost two times because
if if you’re not making those decisions the
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damage they’re causing the no show no call issues with your clients so it’s
not just the retraining but it’s the
18:56
ancillary things of damaged property uh morale and a lot of your real key
19:01
employees now are feeling uh like you’re not respecting them because you’re
letting these people with literally a
19:08
heartbeat two feet uh continue to go and break the rules so it’s if you
really compounded the whole thing uh the
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numbers really it’s astronomical it’s monstrous and you and if you’ve been
if you’ve been in business for very long
19:20
you know the pain of bad a bad hire and and so so the one of the things we
19:26
want to coach coach you through is this process of how do you hire
efficiently and effectively and if I were to give
19:32
just one bit of advice in out of the two hours or three hours I want to
talk to you about it the one bit of advice is
19:37
simply this uh higher slow and that’s going to feel really
19:44
difficult in the moment where there’s a lot of work to do and I don’t feel
like I have time to
19:50
wait to put someone in that seat but higher slow and Fire fast meaning as
19:57
soon as someone is not fitting not working that you pull the trigger and
you’re moving on to the next person so that you’re built filling your team
with
20:04
people who are a great fit by way of their performance and a great fit by
way of their culture
20:09
love it so now we’ve got the time we’ve got the finances we’ve got a simple
business that’s ready to scale and be
20:14
able to sell simple Services got the people to perform the work Dan uh next
step is literally putting the rocket
20:21
fuel in the rocket and going out and building a repeatable client
acquisition
20:27
model and there’s a couple pieces that we tackle in that part uh once again
we’ve got this machine running it the
20:33
the sales process and client acquisition process should really just be a a
really a non-emotional math game that does not
20:40
revolve around the business owners selling yeah the really sad part that
I’ve I
20:45
bumped into and I don’t know why but it feels like particularly in the lawn
care industry there there are a lot of people
20:52
spending a lot of money on marketing that isn’t producing results and and I
and I’ve been we’ve been
20:58
hunting and working and we’ve we’ve dialed in and found a couple of
companies that really support lawn care
21:03
and service businesses in really powerful ways that produce predictable
results the current world especially
21:09
with online marketing if we just talked about the online marketing should
you should be it should become over time now
21:15
it’s going to take some time but over time it should be very predictable
you should know exactly what you’re going to get and you should be able to
say I’m
21:22
going to spend a hundred dollars and I know and put it in the box and how
the other end is going to come a thousand dollars and I just know every
time I put
21:29
that hundred dollars in we’re gonna get a thousand dollars out so we want
to build a predictable enough
21:34
uh acquisition machine that we know if we’re going to put money in we’re
going to get that money out and and there are
21:41
a lot of different strategies and techniques and tactics um that’s why
again sitting across from
21:46
a fractional CEO so to speak and to say all right out of all of the tactics
we
21:52
want to do where do we start and what’s the first thing that we want to do
21:57
um I was chatting with a really good friend of mine who is a talented
marketer and the services industry
22:02
and I said what’s first and she said really easy it’s you’re you’re just
22:08
getting your Google uh certified uh a local business certified and to go get
22:14
your local Google Certified is really easy and really effective to produce
the
22:19
highest result fastest so those are the kinds of things we want to get you
to are what are the fastest things you can
22:25
do to produce predictable results awesome and now that we’ve got this
22:30
thing uh the business is getting to a size now where the business owners
hiring people they don’t know and these people they don’t know are probably
22:36
hiring people they don’t know um and it’s going to get to a point when we
get to that seven figure Mark and
22:42
Beyond now that we’ve got to actually build a Leadership Model and a
leadership team and get crystal clear
22:48
about that purpose and some core values and it was interesting Dan when I
first
22:54
met you um I basically become an absentee owner uh in the business really
wasn’t working
22:59
that much in the business but when I when I got back into the office um the
gentleman who’s running the
23:04
business blew out his Achilles tendon so I kind of had to hop back into the
role um and as I got back into that business
23:11
I looked at man we don’t we don’t we don’t have a culture like there’s
nothing there but really come to find
23:16
out we actually had a culture it was a culture that it evolved out of the
guy running the business
23:21
um and it really wasn’t the culture that I wanted to have within that
business so we went out and found Dan and
23:28
really got really clear on how to create a purpose in uh mission and vision
and
23:34
values and then how to actually create a plan annually and quarterly to be
on
23:40
track and actually get that business to hum um and then when everybody was
kind of rolling in the right direction magic
23:45
happened um but then it got to a certain point or literally I had to create
many leaders
23:51
underneath me that basically carry that same strategy and vision of the
company um so Dan I don’t know if you want to
23:56
talk about this this is really uh this was a pivotal part of my business
and this is was so important to me that I
24:01
was like man I’ve got to bring this experience to the lawn care industry
because it not only changed my life uh
24:09
but it changed everybody else within the organization and now that we’ve
been doing this in the lawn care instance specifically in the masterminds
group
24:16
for about 13 months now to see that journey in all the companies and how
these business owners have become proper
24:22
CEOs and gotten really clear um and the thing I always hear is Clarity
they’re really clear about the
24:28
business and where they stand what they stand for and how they actually
execute and how they actually go out to hire
24:34
fire and train to those core values that you were kind of alluding to in
Step number three yeah if if you haven’t
24:42
experienced this yet uh as you go through these steps and as you put each
building block in place you’re going to
24:48
come to a moment where the business starts to grow fast and maybe some of
you the business grew fast without these steps in place
24:54
because sometimes it does sometimes it’s you hang up your sign and people
are flocking and you just are trying to keep it all together
25:00
and in order for the as the business accelerates in its growth you have to
be
25:06
able to uh make more decisions faster that makes sense right so there are
more
25:13
problems there are more questions there are more challenges and we have to
be able to make the rate of our decision
25:18
making has to accelerate and there’s a reason like there’s something we
call the million dollar Plateau I think in lawn care it might be like the
million
25:24
five Plateau or somewhere in there um but you get to the point where the
business owner if they’re the only real
25:30
decision maker in the business they they just can’t physically keep up with
the pace of decision making that’s required
25:37
and it will feel like after a while that they’re drowning in decisions that
they have to make and problems they have to
25:43
solve and that’s the moment where you have to transition from business owner
25:49
entrepreneur into CEO leader of leaders and again it would be to put in
25:55
perspective it’s not even business owner it’s full-time babysitter cat
herder firefighter it’s just surrounded by
26:02
animals chaos so I I got to put a perspective because I’ve lived this now
um in multiple seven-figure businesses
26:09
I’ve that I’ve started up um and I will tell you the second or third time
around is significantly
26:14
easier when these things are in place but the first time in the lawn care
company I didn’t know any better I just
26:19
thought that this was normal and this is the way it operated man when we
met you and the team and you guys I was like wait a minute I don’t have to
make every
26:26
decision I don’t have to fight everybody every day if we wake up and you’re
just ready to enter the boxing match and
26:32
you’re getting pounded with one thing up the other um it’s so resilient
this is the amazing part this is why I think entrepreneurs
26:37
are the coolest people ever is because they’re so resilient that they’re
bouncing back again and again and
26:45
getting punched and figured uh they’re like all right let’s go again like
the Rocky Balboa man and so yeah so there’s
26:51
gonna come a time where you’re going to have to lead a group of leaders so
that and we’re all making decisions together
26:58
and all of those decisions are in harmony because they are part of a shared
vision and so if I’m sitting
27:04
across from a CEO and they’re at this phase I’m saying all right we have to
get really crystal clear on your vision
27:11
and vision for me it’s Jim actually Jim borrowing it from Jim Collins there
are three elements of vision the first one
27:18
is purpose why are we doing what we’re doing what the why is it like at the
core Center of how we operate as a
27:26
business and it allows people to make a decision understanding that so if
our business is simple growth our purpose is
27:33
to help business owners take their life back from their business get their
life back from their business and so as a
27:40
Mike’s Iran we’re we’re in separate rooms we can make similar decisions
because we both know hey what’s going to
27:46
help this business owner get their life back and that’s why we do all of
this this is why we’re giving away free content it’s like we want to help
27:53
business owners get their life back from their business and so I know that
I can make a decision in harmony with that and I’m to be in harmony with
every other
27:59
leader the second piece is we want to create a mission which is a
three-year strategic objective this is a clear
28:05
understanding of what we’re trying to do right now what mountain we’re
trying to climb right now and the third element that we’re trying to get
clear on is a
28:11
set of core values of how we’re going to operate what our attributes
characteristics and behaviors will be uh
28:18
when we’re in different rooms so I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced
this but if you ever walk by one of your employees and you kind of cringe
with
28:23
something they said or did and you go oh that’s not like that’s not how I
would do that
28:29
oh oh and it just makes you skin crawl and what we got to do in order to
cure
28:35
that throughout the organizations we got a deeply like communicate and and
have
28:41
all of our employees drink the Kool-Aid of the values to where they’re
operating in a similar way to the way the business
28:48
owner would operate if they were in their seat so again our goal is to have
this harmonious decision-making organism
28:54
it’s making decisions all together in similar ways the way we do that is
that they’re operating with a shared purpose
29:01
a shared set of values and that they have a shared understanding of what
29:06
we’re trying to accomplish together right now what’s our three-year
strategic objective and so for example
29:11
I’ll give you a lawn care example so my buddy Aaron I’m pretty sure he’ll
be okay if I share this but he said his
29:17
purpose is to is to save Lawns and Elevate people so every time any of
their employees go
29:22
out they all have that tattooed on their minds their goal is to save
Montana people so each interaction they have
29:28
elevates people what’s the outcome of that well his attrition rate just just
29:33
drops and drops and drops so I think they’re like 50 right now like just
drops and drops and drops on the
29:38
nutrition rate because all of their employees have that on their hearts
they have a set of core values I can’t recite all their core values they
have a set of
29:44
core values that all of their employees have memorized like literally every
employee in the company has memorized their core values and their seven core
29:50
values and then the last they have a mission which is to really focus in
and dial in this part of their business and
29:56
scale up their acquisition model and and it’s very concrete and specific it
includes very specific Mission goals
30:02
like Revenue numbers client acquisition numbers so they’re very clear
across the
30:08
board every employee in their company have understanding and Clarity around
that and that allows Aaron again to step
30:14
away from the business and know that the decisions that are happening in
this business are going to be in harmony for this overall vision and so
that’s what
30:20
we we really spend time with if you’re if you’re on a rocket ship of
business right now and it is flying and you do
30:27
not have Clarity or you do not have your leadership team is not in harmony
around clear a Clear Vision of where we’re
30:32
going uh like be prepared to bump into things and to have pain as a result
of that
30:38
because people are going to be making decisions that are that are just a
little off track and when you’re going
30:43
fast that one degree difference turns into a big Chasm really fast and
30:50
so we have to really be committed leaders around Clarity of vision yeah you
couldn’t sound better myself
30:55
Dan and if anybody’s watching this because I know at first I was a little
skeptical I’m like well how is this going to work in the field
31:01
like how does that work with our crew leaders our technicians um and the
biggest thing I hear especially working with hundreds of businesses each
year is
31:08
how do I get these guys or girls to to actually be accountable how do I get
them to actually do just the bare
31:14
minimum what they should be doing in their role when we actually dive in
with some methodology we call it Big Three
31:21
um and this it literally creates Clarity once again throughout the
organization and you know
31:26
um if you can only do three things in your position these are the three
things that are driving towards that actual
31:31
Mission um so it’s not just the people in your office it’s right down from
your technicians with running weed whackers
31:37
there’s blowers your mechanic your team leaders and right up everybody’s on
the same page and when that happens it’s
31:44
absolute magic so um you know one of one of the industry Consultants came
up to me we actually
31:49
start to Institute this at Callahan’s Lawn Care um we basically said Mike
you’re crazy the only thing that would motivate the
31:56
guys and girls on your team is a team picnic some hot dogs hamburgs and
maybe a couple cold beers at the end of the
32:01
day once a month um yeah that’s great but honestly I’m here to tell you that
32:07
um I gotta completely disagree with that that methodology or that feeling
because now I’ve seen it in three different
32:12
organizations that I’ve owned and been a part of and it really goes right
down to
32:18
the person answering the phone the person taken out of the garbage at the
office or the technicians so everybody
32:23
no matter their position their pay rate will buy into this if we hire
correctly through this methodology and all the
32:30
headaches of the past 99 of them at least you’re still going to have some
headaches um in any business but it gets really
32:36
really good and everybody’s now trying to help you with any of those little
headaches that pop up and you’re clear and you’re all going in the same
direction so Dan I can’t thank you
32:43
enough because honestly that was one thing that I invested a lot of faith
because here I had some of these
32:48
industry uh professionals saying you know what you can’t do that with field
staff you can’t do that with your laborers maybe your office well I’m here
32:55
to tell you you can and we’ve got close to 100 people now uh in the group
that have recognize the same exact thing and
33:02
heard some of the same advice uh in the different industry events and that
you can’t do this with labor but we’re not
33:07
just looking at them as labor anymore we’re looking as part of the team
part of the culture and we’re living and
33:13
breathing um that that purpose um just like we do it simple it can be a
33:18
very specific example so I was with a company the other day uh they’re a
fertilization company out of the
33:25
southeast and they I was sitting at a lunch and one of their technicians
just
33:30
a guy who likes to spray things and he was sitting uh and and he was sat
across
33:36
the table for me and he said Dan I want to tell you I’m so proud I did this
I can’t remember
33:42
this 2400 24 000 square foot house in 15 minutes and it was like I have a
whole
33:47
system and how I do it and it’s super fast and efficient and this guy had a
ton of personal and
33:53
professional pride in the work that he did and that was trans that changed
from
33:59
and and that business owner reported that his trucks were making 25 more
34:06
um per truck per week um and all that had changed all that had changed is
that we sat down
34:13
with them and we included them in the vision of the company and the next
thing you know he was out there I’ve been but I can not the
34:21
fastest on the team and everyone’s like no I’m the fastest right and they
were like all bought in and committed and
34:26
they loved their job and they said hey man I love my boss because he treats
me like a human being and I used to work at
34:32
Applebee’s and then you know like there’s no like there’s a whole culture
shift and and human beings will always
34:40
respond uh to to this kind of respect and care and connection it’s a deep
34:45
human need to be part of something bigger yourself and I can go on for a
long time Mike I know our time’s almost up yeah okay can’t think enough
you’ve
34:50
got to compressed schedule uh actually I do two today uh we actually are
hopping on here uh in a little bit with
34:57
um the monthly masterminds webinar so if you guys are watching this this
sounds of interest uh feel free to book a call
35:02
it’s sgscall.com um to see if you actually qualify to uh
35:07
join the masterminds or our scale plus group but in addition we’ve got a
bit of urgency here if this is something you
35:13
want to do every quarter we do a live event so we’ve been to Shreveport
Louisiana we’ve been to Dallas we’ve
35:19
been to Charlotte North Carolina all of which have had live shop tours so
not only do you get to go in and learn all
35:25
these things but then you can actually see them in action inside these
multi-seven-figure businesses interact
35:30
with the business owners or office staff uh check out their equipment how
they operate how they set up their yards all
35:37
of that to be said we’ve got our next live event coming up in the beginning
of August in Nashville Tennessee we’ve
35:44
taken a different spin on this one because we found there’s a lot of value
in business owners being able to network
35:50
with each other not only during the teaching and and we don’t just teach
this stuff we actually Workshop this
35:55
stuff to stuff this is where it’s completely different um we do have some
fun events uh one night for team building with the group
36:01
what we’ve done is dedicated a whole day on this Nashville event uh where
business owners literally can just
36:06
Network have a good time uh go golfing see some things in Nashville and
we’ve rented out about six or seven Cabanas
36:12
poolside Dan uh where we can hang out and have a good time and um catch up
with this hand and and here’s the truth
36:19
like every time I share people with people what we do and how we do it
especially I was chatting with a
36:25
seasoned entrepreneur last night and he goes where were you 20 years ago
36:31
where who are you 20 years ago when I uh when I was a brand new bright-eyed
entrepreneur and I didn’t really quite
36:37
know what I was doing but I was making it up as I went where were you then
and I mean like I’m not we’re not trying to
36:44
be egotistical or anything we just have done it a lot of times and we’ve
seen a lot of companies and and we have this
36:50
big heart to help uh companies make progress in that direction and so like I
36:55
you can’t I’m kind of like you can go do it yourself we want you to take
these steps and run with them man if if you’re
37:00
the type person that doesn’t need help or support or accountability great
uh but if you do need help support
37:06
accountability please let us let us support and help you um the cool part
about our coaching is
37:12
it’s not theoretical it’s very practical and down to earth all of our
coaches currently are CEOs of lawn care
37:19
companies of really successful ones and so you’re sitting down across from
somebody who’s sitting in your same seat
37:25
and you get the chance to uh connect with them and talk kind of fractional
CEO style CEO to CEO and work through
37:32
your business and kind of accelerate things again it it’s you can do it on
your own it’s just a lot harder and
37:39
takes more time and and you end up making similar mistakes to to what these
37:45
guys have already been through so uh if you’re interested if you’re curious
we’d love to love to support you and serve
37:50
you if not uh we don’t care about you okay we love you we care about you
37:56
um but uh we would love to we’d love to serve you however we can and and uh
Mike
38:01
they can reach out to us through Linkedin Facebook wherever you’re finding
this yep feel free to find us reach out we’d be happy to help or you
38:07
can go to S call.com and just get on the phone and
38:14
we can kind of walk you through and maybe evaluate we’re in the six steps
you might see some opportunity awesome Dan can’t thank you enough and
38:20
uh I will see you in a few minutes on the other call where what are we
talking about today just as a little teaser yeah see we’re we’re talking
about
38:26
supervising your leadership development so uh leadership development is so
so important but sometimes hard to get your
38:32
fingers around how do you actually go about it and we have a very specific
process a four-step process of like okay
38:37
step one step two step three step four here’s how you supercharge that
leadership development I’m still can’t wait to see it Dan appreciate it I’ll
38:43
see you on about 10 minutes with the masterminds group live in our monthly
webinar and uh once again if you want to
38:49
uh see if this is right fit for you or it could be a help in your business
sgscall.com and uh look forward to talking to you
38:55
thanks bye